Sleek 89 - Play

Publishers Letter 

There is a question I have been asking myself repeatedly over the past months: when did we stop playing? Not: when did we stop playing games. But when did we stop treating life the way a child treats an afternoon – without a predetermined outcome, without a metric at the end, without knowing where it leads? I think it happens gradually. First we optimise a little. Then we monetise. Then we measure. Until every impulse becomes a strategy and every instinct a KPI. What remains is efficiency. What is lost is everything else. This issue is a response to that. Not as nostalgia – we have no interest in returning to the kids room. But as a serious claim: play is not the opposite of taking things seriously. It is its highest form.

COVER: CAO FEI by JOAN MINDER

Featuring by Cao Fei, Kenny Moore II, Casey Spooner, Justus Riesner, Jenny Schlenzka, Anna Seidel, Bülent Ceylan, Fabian Kluth, many more.